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Have you ever looked at a situation you’re facing in utter disbelief and thought, "How will I ever get over this?" Lysa TerKeurst understands. After years of heartbreak and emotional trauma, she realized it’s not about just getting over hard circumstances but learning how to work through what she has walked through. Now, she wants to help you do the same. That’s why Lysa teamed up with her personal, licensed professional counselor, Jim Cress, alongside the Director of Theological Research at Proverbs 31 Ministries, Dr. Joel Muddamalle, to bring you "Therapy & Theology." While Lysa, Jim and Joel do tackle some really hard topics, you’ll soon find they're just three friends having a great conversation and learning from each other along the way.
Lysa TerKeurst:
This is Lysa TerKeurst, and you're listening to Therapy & Theology. Before we get into today's conversation, I'd like to thank the American Association of Christian Counselors for sponsoring Season 7 of Therapy & Theology. I love the work that my friends and I get to do through this podcast that allows for therapeutic wisdom and deep theological insights to be accessible to anyone from anywhere. But we're really only able to scratch the surface. I know there are thousands of individuals needs represented in our listeners as they navigate their own life and relationships, and that's why I always love recommending the American Association of Christian Counselors. They know asking for help is hard but finding help shouldn't be. They created the Mental Health Coach training program to equip you to know how to respond when a friend comes to you for help.
Featuring some of the world's leading mental help and ministry leaders, this online, video-based Mental Health Coach training program teaches you how to talk through the touch issues like what we talk about here on Therapy & Theology and how to respond to them. Visit mentalhelpcoach.org to learn how you can sign up for their Mental Health Coach program, or visit the link in the show notes to learn more.
When you've been hurt or experience real heartbreak or betrayal, it's so hard then not to fall into thought spirals. Now let me explain what I mean by thought spirals. I will have a fear ... usually, I'll see something, and I'll fear like, "Oh, no." And I can instantly jump to worst-case scenario. I'm an expert at worst-case scenario. If you ever have a moment where you want to know what is the worst-case scenario, I'm your girl.
Call me. I can think of a worst-case scenario like that so quickly.
Now I used to be able to control jumping to worst-case scenarios by saying to myself, "Worst-case scenarios don't usually happen, Lysa." Just because they didn't return your phone call doesn't mean they've been in a horrific car accident, right? But I have experienced so many worst-case scenarios actually happening in the past 10 years when my family's gone through so much hurt and heartbreak that now I cannot control my thought spirals by saying, "Most of the time, worst-case scenarios don't happen," because I know that they do. Maybe you have been in this same situation. One night I was writing about this in my journal, and I had no idea that my thought spirals were really an attempt to be in control. I'm not a controlling person. I don't think you would interact with me and go, "Man, she's controlling." Right?
Jim Cress:
Except in card games.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Except in card games.
Joel Muddamalle:
I don't know that's controlling. It's just she's winning.
Jim Cress:
Well, OK.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Except I'm good, actually. Maybe I need to [inaudible].
Joel Muddamalle:
Maybe.
Lysa TerKeurst:
OK. But I never connected control and trust issues ... never did. One night, as I was really trying to get to what is causing all of these thought spirals, I wrote down in my journal “What I don't trust, I try to control.” And so I want to read you a part from my book, I Want to Trust You, but I Don't. It doesn't sound so bad to try to control out of control situations. Right? I mean, don't we all want to prevent bad things from happening as much as we can? Yes. But where I can slip into unhealthy patterns is trying to prevent what is beyond my ability to control. After all, I think if I can prevent bad things from happening, then I don't have to rely on or trust anyone else. I don't have to participate in that terrifying unknown of people making choices that mess everything up or put everything at risk.
And I don't have to participate in that sometimes terrifyingly unknown of trusting God, who allows things that are so very confusing at best and devastating at worst. But my desire to control, it's an illusion or possibly a delusion. It's presumptuous of me and so very prideful to think I know what's best, and yet the most tender places of my heart, the ones that shake with fear because I can't stand the thought of another awful thing being added to my family's story, just keep saying, "Please try, Lysa," because maybe this time, you are the one who can possibly hold it all together.
And so trust, I went on to write, it kind of feels like I'm betraying my best efforts to keep it all together while others aren't paying nearly enough attention to these things. So what I don't trust, I will try to control. And I don't physically try to control people, but here's what can so easily happen to me. I want to be able to think about all of the things that I can say to help bring the narrative back to what I think is best. And I want to make sure that people know, if you make this decision, I can see a train wreck happening down here. I can see the train barreling toward you, and I'm not sure that you can see the train barreling toward you. And if the train hits you, it's also going to impact me. And so it's not necessarily that I want to control what you do, I just want to control the things that feel out of control so that I can bring some sense of peace and security back into my life.
Jim Cress:
Which I guess would be “controlling,” to use a term the world uses, but you're really trying to control yourself. And I would want to honor for a moment, no matter what your motive or modus operandi is, you're really trying to keep yourself safe. Don't you think? Even if you say it's unhealthy at one level, I watched that whole thing go out, and it came right back to you. I heard you say you want to keep yourself safe.
Lysa TerKeurst:
I want to keep myself safe.
Jim Cress:
Yeah, makes sense.
Lysa TerKeurst:
That's my whole motivation. But where I get in trouble is, and oftentimes my thought spirals and won't land is, because I'm trying to control something that is completely out of my control. I will thought spiral around the decisions that you're making. I cannot control your decisions. I can't control what you do, what you don't do. But if what you're doing is impacting me, then somehow I feel like my brain kind of tricks myself into believing, no, no, no, no, there is something I can say. There is something I can do. There is something I can show him. There is something, a solution, that I could possibly find that would make him finally wake up and go, "Wait, I'm making the wrong decisions here."
Jim Cress:
And you're going to feel good in the moment, again, back to that brain chemistry, because you're going to be firing dopamine, likely to fire cortisol, the stress hormone in your body. There is a real sense of, what is a practical thing in the brain, soul, body of this is you will feel energized. As I was watching you right there, you didn't look bored. It was like, "I can do this." I felt even the level vocally pitch up. And in that moment, I'm firing quite a bit of neurochemistry that I will get a buzz off of. Right? It's very practical in the body.
Lysa TerKeurst:
I don't know. I don't know if I feel a buzz off of it, but you're probably right. It's like some kind of energy, and I don't know what to do with this energy. And a lot of times, it happens late at night, and so I will want to process with someone late at night. I'm married now to an amazing man named Chaz, but he gets super tired at about 9 p.m. at night. And if I come to him —
Joel Muddamalle:
He's got the spiritual gift of napping, Lysa.
Lysa TerKeurst:
He does. He has a special gift.
Joel Muddamalle:
I tell you what: Chaz can nap at any time.
Lysa TerKeurst:
He is 100%, and then he's zero. And so at night sometimes, I'll just be like, "Oh, no. I just thought of something," and I'll start that spiral. I've got to control this because if I don't control this, if I don't, this is out of control. What can I do? What can I do? What can I do? And I will think in my mind, If we can just talk about it, then I can just verbally process it and get it all out, then it's going to fix things. But what often happens is, he'll go, "Honey, that is not a 9 p.m. at night discussion. Let's do it in the morning. Let's have that talk in the morning." And I'm thinking, That's nice because you're instantly going to fall asleep, but then I'm going to be sitting here, and I'm going to be thought spiraling all night long.
And so recently, we had one of these moments, and I'm like, "No, it is a 9 p.m. conversation. You need to rally. You need to wake up because we've got to talk about this. We've got to talk about this." And things didn't go well because obviously, that late at night, nothing is going to be solved. And actually, my thought spiral ... inviting someone into my thought spiral often doesn't solve the issue because what's happening is I want to feel safe. That's what I want: to feel safe. But instead of me verbalizing, "I'm scared I'm not safe," I will say, "Let's keep talking about it. If we keep talking about it, I know we're going to land. We're going to land. We're going to land," and my thought spiral just keeps going on and on and on. And it frustrates whoever I'm having a conversation with. But not only that, it exhausts me because ultimately, I come to the same conclusion every time.
Jim Cress:
Which is?
Lysa TerKeurst:
I cannot control what is outside of my ability to control.
Jim Cress:
OK. We interrupt this program for the following question. What did you do in that season, and we talked about it, but when you were alone? And I know there will be a time you may not be able to reach a friend. I notice, by the way, caveat, that you're trying melatonin in the body. You're trying to go to sleep. You might've been stimulated. You do like to play card games and things. And you're coming in there with Chaz. I want to see Chaz, next time I see him, I'm going to say, "Chaz, you need to put the words for me in there." Hey, 9 [p.m.] is not the time because truly in health, he would say, "For me," because you're going, "It's the right time for me." What did you do in a season when there was no one right there with you and you had the same thoughts spiraling? You had to do something with it?
Lysa TerKeurst:
Well, I had to get my thoughts out. And because I didn't have someone else to talk and verbally process it with, I would often fill my journal up with those thoughts.
Jim Cress:
Option 1.
Lysa TerKeurst:
But now I feel like I want deeply to respect that 9 p.m. is not a great time of night to have my thought spirals and have an unrealistic expectation of Chaz to want to talk about this for hours and hours and hours because it's not even that I'm trying to get to a solution. I just want to —
Jim Cress:
You just want to process.
Lysa TerKeurst:
I want to process it over and over and over and over. And what I'm really looking for is I'm safe, but it's not another person telling me I'm safe. I have to believe I'm safe for myself. And that's where the thought spiral just ... nobody else can fix it. Nobody else can tell me that I'm safe enough. I have to believe that for myself. And so I've learned that overprocessing with someone else ... processing is good, but overprocessing, especially late at night, it's not going to fix it.
Jim Cress:
Are you saying that tangibly, it also doesn't even help you if you overprocessed it with Chaz? Is there an element that it would actually not help you?
Lysa TerKeurst:
Well, it helps me because I feel like then someone else can be invited into the stress I feel and commiserate with me.
Jim Cress:
Share that cortisol right away.
Lysa TerKeurst:
But I had an epiphany the other day.
Jim Cress:
Oh, I can't wait.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And this was really, really helpful. When I'm having those thought spirals, I have realized if I acknowledge what worst-case scenario is, and I acknowledge what best-case scenario is, and I literally say out loud to myself, "Right now, this moment, it's not worst-case scenario. It's not best-case scenario. It's in the middle, so I've got to bring my thoughts into the middle." And when I bring my thoughts into the middle, I'll say, "Is there something within my control I can do right now or add to my to-do list tomorrow?" If there is, write it down. If there's not, that's where I have to literally, physically close my eyes and mentally hand this over to the Lord. I can't —
Jim Cress:
As in surrender?
Lysa TerKeurst:
As in surrender.
Jim Cress:
There's a good word.
Lysa TerKeurst:
I cannot control what this person says. I cannot control what this person does. I cannot control if this person gets elected or that person gets elected. I cannot control whatever the diagnosis is about to be. I cannot control my adult kids and what they do and what they don't do, and what they think and what they don't think, and how they act and how they don't act. I cannot control those things. So what is it that I can do right now in this minute? And bringing my thoughts back to this moment helps me so much because it helps me not run too far into the future or run too far into hoping for the best but dreading the worst but rather acknowledging what is this moment. What can I do? And what is out of my control to do? And that has helped me a lot.
Jim Cress:
Well, you just saved money, truthfully, not being silly here at all. There is a book actually with this title, Don't Worry about It; it's called self-therapy. I watched you just practice Nehemiah 5:7; just let it go. It's God's Word: and so “I took counsel with myself.” People are missing. I mentor and counsel so many people. You've got to get off of just being dependent on the therapist. Take counsel with yourself. What is your ... I am amazed living there. I thought I found your therapist. It is not Jim Cress. It's you. [Greek] Right? In Greek, thy heal.
Then 2 Corinthians 10:4-5, there can be strongholds of thought spirals. Why not? And I demolish those. It's got Jesus coming to demolish those. It's not Chaz. By taking every thought. How many? I literally sat there and watched this, and I hope our viewers and our listeners caught that, that you were taking literally ... I watched you name them, “every thought captive.” And I knew because of you and your faith, and you made them obedient to Christ, who is the Way and the Truth and the Life. And you said, you landed the plane, said, "Thought, here you are," like me taking this pen and laying it on the Word of God and saying, "This is what's true." And then I watched you, even as you're on this podcast, self-regulate. You may not have caught that in yourself, but as you were doing it, it was like, "This is this; this is this. Here's the messy middle. Here's what's true. Here's what I can control."
And that's why I mean saving money in therapy, a lot of people, I want people out of the therapy office once they've done their work to do self-therapy and just go with yourself and tell yourself the truth, especially late at night. Remember one last thing, the body again is trying to go unconscious. It needs to defrag the hard drive. It needs to let go of control with ... go unconscious literally when we fall asleep, so that's where a lot of people at night rise up and they're being able to control things because their body that keeps the score is saying, "Let go. Go off to sleep." And it mimics our coming death one day. The old-timers all knew that. I will yield and let go and go off into the un- or subconscious.
Just want to inform you, I watched you do that. And if you can do it, I can do it. And I do. And Joel can do it, and it does. And every viewer and listener can start practicing that counsel with oneself.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Well, thank you. I appreciate that, Jim.
Jim Cress:
I saw it happen.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Joel, I want you to comment on this, but I do want to give you a second thought that has really helped me, and it comes from our good friend, Leslie Vernick. And once I bring my thoughts back to the middle and I say, "OK, this is what I can do in this present moment. This is what I cannot do in this present moment," the second layer of question is, "OK, what is my problem with their problem?"
Jim Cress:
Isn't that a great question?
Lysa TerKeurst:
It's such a good question, and it comes straight from Leslie Vernick, and it has helped me so much. So in other words, I can't control the decision that they make, so I determine that's a problem. That's their problem. They are making these choices. But I can control what is my problem with their problem, and that gives me legs for something that I can put action to, not trying to control another person but assessing what I can do to bring a sense of control back to my world, to bring a sense of safety back to my world, and it's a much more productive place for my thoughts to go. What is my problem with their problem?
Jim Cress:
And you're moving away ... You know I'm full of metaphors, and maybe other things too, but moving away from the magnifying glass of someone else's thing, whatever that is, to the mirror and to look in God's Word itself is a mirror and say, "What is going on for me?" And there's Proverbs 20:5, [inaudible] the purposes in a person's heart, my goodness, are deep waters. And a person of understanding goes down and draws them out. I think one can be one's own person of understanding to say, "What's my problem with their problem? And what's going on? Let me get the focus off them." Some of you know this experience of adult children. Joel's children are not adults yet.
And you think parenting and all this when they were younger and they might start rebelling or things, and then you realize how not powerful you are. And then they start having their own children, and you want to go, "I wouldn't do ... " And it's that surrender around that. But the idea is: So what does it mean if one of your kids rebelled or started going astray? I love to encourage people, as I encourage myself, “Jimbo, what's going on in you?” And I'm curious with myself and gentle? “What's this hitting in you, buddy?” Counseling myself, so as you do that, even as you're getting ready to go off to sleep or another time, or Leslie's words is, "I just want to put the magnifying glass," it scares me what these people are doing.
Matter of fact, I don't think that is wise. That's nothing wrong with that. But I want to say, "What is this hitting in me?" And I think that's where contemplation comes in, to really contemplate what's going on in my internal world.
Joel Muddamalle:
That's so good. Jim, you mentioned 2 Corinthians 10:5. Lysa, as I'm thinking through your story and kind of just an example, I do have one question before I get into this. When you say you take your thoughts and you bring them back to the middle, how would you just simply in a sentence maybe define what is the middle?
Lysa TerKeurst:
OK. It's not best-case scenario. It's not worst-case scenario. But it's landing somewhere in between. Yeah, this is going to be hard, but maybe it's not going to be catastrophic. Or yes, this could have a wonderful outcome, but even that wonderful outcome could come with challenges. So just bringing it back to more of a realistic it's not going to be perfect and it's not going to be catastrophic [but] it's going to be somewhere in between.
Jim Cress:
That must be a mystery. Don't you hear that, Joel, that she has to land in the middle here, the messy middle, the middle with some mystery, which even your body language to me looks like you're not trying to control. You're like, "It's not this; it's not that. I have to be here." But you're not describing a concrete place because there is a bit of concrete here or concrete there. But here, it's like embracing the mystery of I don't know. I wonder if faith rises up at that point?
Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah. I'm going to say some stuff here. And I guess as a theologian, sometimes I feel like I get tasked like probably I'm not going to say the thing that you want to hear.
Lysa TerKeurst:
I know.
Jim Cress:
Right now, coming right now?
Joel Muddamalle:
But I'm just going to try to share what the text says.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Yes, you have permission to speak truth into the depths of my overthinking soul.
Joel Muddamalle:
Well, it's for you. It's for me. It's for Jim. It's really for all of us. And I think what you just described there, which this is all happening in real time, so I'm going to process it with my friends here. Bringing your thoughts and bringing them back into the middle is actually the exercise of 2 Corinthians 10:5. And what Paul says is, "and every proud thing," the Greek word here is [Greek]; it has to do with height or lofty ideas. That's what pride is. Pride is taking us to the heights and suggesting to us that from the heights we can see incredibly clear. But actually, what it's doing is it's taking us to the heights so that it can push us off the cliff.
Jim Cress:
Wow, nice.
Joel Muddamalle:
We will see clearly, but we're going to see the ground come crashing into our faces.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Wow.
Joel Muddamalle:
Right? So look at the language, “and every proud thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God,” and then this is kind of the operative phrase here, “we take every thought captive,” period. No, there's no period.
Jim Cress:
That's where secular psychology stopped [inaudible] against it.
Joel Muddamalle:
They do.
Jim Cress:
Thoughts stopping this thought and that's it.
Joel Muddamalle:
And there's a period there. There's no period.
Jim Cress:
That's right.
Joel Muddamalle:
Right? There's a few more words right after that. Well, what is the captive part? And this is I think what you're talking about, Jim, with the mystery, and, Lysa, what you're saying, bringing those thoughts to the middle to the obedience.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Obedient to Christ.
Joel Muddamalle:
I mean, that's it.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Yeah.
Joel Muddamalle:
And so I want to actually pick up earlier because the [inaudible] the section should probably start in verse 3. “For although we live in the flesh,” so here's an honest admission that we are fleshly people; we live in the flesh, so “although we live in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh, since the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. We demolish arguments and every proud thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ.”
The historical social context ... if you were in the city of Corinth and you're with the Corinthians in this church, and you're hearing this letter being read out loud, instantly you're thinking about your history of warfare. Instantly, you're thinking about siege warfare. And you're thinking like, Wait a minute. How do we take things captive? The only way we can take things captive is to deal with the watchtowers around and the cannons. Right? So there's this sense that in order to even get to the captivity of thoughts, we have to deal with the things that are offensively attacking against us. And I think what you did for us in that example is you actually help us to determine the difference between what I want to suggest biblically and theologically is control, which is only actually able to be done by God, and stewardship, which is given to us.
Lysa TerKeurst:
So good.
Jim Cress:
Beautiful wording too.
Joel Muddamalle:
So what do I mean? OK. Control is power, authority, and the ability to exercise that power and authority in any way that you wish and to have the outcome that you desire.
Jim Cress:
Almost like playing God maybe.
Joel Muddamalle:
I mean, it is. That's exactly what it is.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Well, I mean, when I'm having my thought spirals, I'm not like, "Oh, I want to play God," except I do want outcomes that I want.
Joel Muddamalle:
Which is?
Lysa TerKeurst:
Which is —
Joel Muddamalle:
Playing God. OK, so again, I'm just trying to be honest.
Lysa TerKeurst:
I'm just going to reach down and rub my toes really quick.
Jim Cress:
Is that grounding you? Is that helping you get back in —
Lysa TerKeurst:
I don't know. It's just that Joel keeps stepping on them.
Joel Muddamalle:
[Inaudible].
Lysa TerKeurst:
Not physically, emotionally. You're stepping on my toes.
Jim Cress:
For the listeners who cannot see.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Listen. Oh, that's good.
Jim Cress:
And there's room in this, obviously, we're laughing as friends here and talking as we often do. I have to leave room for me in what Lysa's saying of the subconscious. I'm not sitting there thinking, I'll seize control of the scepter and the throne and the crown. Nevertheless, as I quiet my soul, I think, Yeah, I was trying to do something that might be God's doing, not mine. And then I can repent gently and say, Lord, I ... Job did it: My ears heard of you; now my eyes see you (Job 42:5).
Joel Muddamalle:
Eyes have seen you, yeah.
Jim Cress:
I go, Yeah, God, I did it again. He just pops a father’s smile: You think that's breaking news to Me? I was trying to control it. I didn't even know I was doing it.
Joel Muddamalle:
So the thing that I think that 2 Corinthians 7:5 is doing for us, and, Lysa, as you're joking about getting our feet kind of stepped on is it is inviting us into an honest assessment of inventory.
Jim Cress:
So good.
Joel Muddamalle:
So what is the assessment of inventory? What are the things in our life that we're trying to manhandle control over?
Lysa TerKeurst:
Or direct toward the outcome that we really think is best?
Joel Muddamalle:
Exactly.
Jim Cress:
I like that one. That's nuanced. That's good.
Joel Muddamalle:
Yes.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Because that for me ... it's like, "I can so clearly see how this can be OK, how this can be safe, how this can turn out with a much better outcome," and so it's not that I want to grab everybody and force them, it's just I just want to "Ee, ee, ee, ee," back over here. Head in this direction because I see things that I'm afraid you don't see and so have these thoughts. Consider this narrative. Maybe consider these actions.
Jim Cress:
Seriously, use this term like a relational chiropractic person. Let me realign, get things going. Yeah. The numbers.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Or like when you're bowling, I want to be the little things.
Jim Cress:
The bumpers.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Nobody's going to go in the gutter. You're free to go anywhere you want to.
Joel Muddamalle:
I hate those things.
Lysa TerKeurst:
But you are not going ... Just don't go in the gutter.
Jim Cress:
Because if you score a strike, it's not real.
Joel Muddamalle:
It's not even real.
Jim Cress:
It's fake.
Lysa TerKeurst:
I know, but it is so much [inaudible].
Jim Cress:
It feels good in the moment.
Lysa TerKeurst:
It really does.
Joel Muddamalle:
We'll need a therapy session about it later, but here are the type of things I'm talking about with control. It's like you can't have the gutters, as much as we want the gutters, right?
Lysa TerKeurst:
But I love where you're going here, Joel, because there's a big difference between —
Joel Muddamalle:
Control and stewardship.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Because stewardship is still going to leave room for me to be responsible.
Jim Cress:
No doubt.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And I want to be responsible. And sometimes I think, OK, I don't want to control, so I just have to let it all go, but that's not what you're saying.
Joel Muddamalle:
No. Control again is something uniquely of what God can only do in totality. And so it might be just a good opportunity to take just an inventory of things that we have in our lives that we're trying to do, and again, like you said, comfortably, compassionately, honestly, just say, "Oh, wow. Through self-reflection, these are some things that I'm trying to do that is actually outside of my means." And the more that we try to do things that are outside of our means, that end result is not peace; it's anxiety. It's frustration. Right?
Stewardship is actually, theologically, stewardship is this sense that God, who is in total control, has given us responsibility and vocation, and now we ought to be responsible with the things that have been given to us, which recognizes our human limits. So stewardship is a gift for us because stewardship allows us to do what we can with what we have in the means that we have. And anything that is outside of our means or things that we don't have are things that we're not required to be stewards over, and so we have to be really careful with that.
And so you might just say, "Oh, what are some things in my life that I'm trying to control that are actually not things that are even mine to control? And what are some things that I actually ought to steward that God has given to me but I actually might be neglecting those things because I'm so busy consumed [by] trying to control the things that I have no control over?" And so doing this is what is being acted out in 2 Corinthians 7:5. We're taking captive these thoughts that could derail us. And instead, we're, with your language, bringing them back into the middle. And the mystery of this is when we bring it back into the middle, we don't try to control it. We don't try to force it into one of these lanes. We bring it to an obedience to Christ. He's the one who brings rule and reign over it.
Jim Cress:
Can I share a quote I made up, and it's on [an] Instagram post? And it's “Jim-ism,” so I don't know how good this one, but I liked it. And some people seem to like it. And it's this simple, if I can remember it, sorry. I have a picture of a game controller on my Instagram post. “When I try to control what I cannot control, I will be controlled by what I cannot control.” So it's both hard because I am one of the biggest controllers, I want to control ... A moment ago, we had a small little edit because the TV went on some screen-saver thing, and I got to control by going up and touch-screening the thing. I like the remote control. But when I try to control what I really cannot control, then I will be controlled by what I cannot control. And the biggest place that's ever gotten me, not you two, but it’s parenting.
And I have to realize, wow, that agency that even our kids have. Or in this betrayal series we're doing and trust series, I will do all I can to control my spouse from not acting out in infidelity, or once they do, I will control ... No one knows this one. Right? I will control that they will never for sure go act out again. I will be enough this. And then you have foolish people who are out there saying, "Well, if you just give him more sex, or if you do more of this, or if you would do this."
Lysa TerKeurst:
And they're encouraging you to try to control things around that.
Jim Cress:
It's absolutely ... And it's like —
Joel Muddamalle:
That's not control; that's manipulation.
Jim Cress:
Well, then one betrays oneself, believe it or not, because they wake, and I threw everything in ... Stonewall Jackson said, "Throw everything into the fight." I did it all. I mean, I crossed t’s and dotted i’s. And I did everything, and they betrayed me again. And that's a setup versus a yielding of cannot ... And we know this, but our buddy, Chaz, and your husband, Chaz, knows this well because of his own admission of recovery. Right? I'm a 12-stepper myself too in recovery. And there's the idea: I do inventory work. I've got to make it about me. We tell people, "This is from the 12 steps real quick. Don't take somebody else's inventory." You're over there obsessed with what Joel needs to do in his life. Where's your own inventory? You come back. OK, what do I need to do here? In the middle, sure. But what do I need to do here?
Lysa TerKeurst:
So good. Well, let's end with this because I think this is also coming back to that. Am I being a steward of this, or am I trying to control this? I have to be careful that I don't run into the future mentally — run into the future, determine what is best, and then try to hold everyone accountable, including God, to what my version of the best is. Instead, what I have to do is recognize I've got to be right here in this moment. I can make wise decisions by considering the future, but I can't run into the future, write a script, and then try to hold God accountable to the script that I've written of how things should go.
And I think one of the best ways that I can do that is to recognize, yes, God may not have this future in mind. It may be different. But just because it's different doesn't mean it's bad. Different can still be good. Anything we place in God's hands will not return void. Anything we place. So if I place my future in God's hands, it may look different, but when it's in God's hands, it's not bad. It's just different.